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After last week’s widely-publicized hearings voting to hold him in contempt for defying two Congressional subpoenas, Hunter’s lawyers suddenly and unexpectedly “reversed course” yesterday, and politely asked House Republicans for a third subpoena, saying this time Hunter will follow the rules and sit for a non-public deposition.

Why the shift? Hunter’s deposition antics have manufactured a thorny political problem. Republicans’ Hunter Narrative is about double standards of justice. If the House holds Hunter in contempt, and the DOJ refuses to do anything about it, it would pour high-octane gasoline into the Hunter Narrative tank. Either the DOJ would be forced to make an example of Hunter, or Grandma Garland would make Hunter even more of a poster-boy for “two tiers of justice” than he already is.

On the other hand, if the House doesn’t hold Hunter in contempt, because of democrat votes plus a couple squishy Republicans, it would also reinforce the Hunter Narrative. Reinforcing that narrative might be a better political result for Republicans than would even be Hunter’s deposition.

So my Daughter had a zoom interview for a Data Analyst for a certain alphabet agency yesterday.

In more appalling news from the two-tiered justice department, the UK Daily Mail ran an eye-watering story last week headlined, “Nancy Pelosi's son Paul Pelosi, Jr. dodges federal charges for the SEVENTH time after being linked to money laundering and mail fraud scheme involving San Fransisco flop house.”

Even more insulting than the fact Pelosi, 55, wasn’t charged, was that he had two co-conspirators in the same deal who were charged. Pelosi’s co-conspirators, apparently, do not enjoy first-tier treatment and became defendants, unlike Pelosi, whose real name was omitted from the government papers altogether and he was referred to in the papers by a polite acronymized alias to protect his privacy.

Those are only some of the benefits of tier one. Maybe if you work hard enough, someday you too can enjoys tier one rewards.

Among other things, the Daily Mail reported that documents proved Pelosi paid bribes to San Fransisco officials for building permits. Not only that, but Pelosi owned a fifth of a fraudulent building with the co-conspirators, who were charged with bilking investors of millions. Finally, Pelosi was sued individually by at least one of the defrauded investors, who alleged he masterminded the deal. But federal prosecutors weren’t interested.

The Daily Mail noted this is the seventh federal case linked to the junior Pelosi, with no charges ever filed against him in any of them. Maybe he’s got nine lives.

Paul Pelosi, Jr., provided a five-star rating for the service on “tier one”, and he recommends it, as do New York’s illegal border-jumpers. Alas, too bad for you! Enjoy your “tier two” accommodations, such as they are, and don’t ask for extra peanuts.

The big complaints about immigration are mostly coming from outside Texas, places like New York City where illegal immigrants beat police with impunity, being released without bail after being arrested. (The usual endgame for this sort of thing in other societies has been death squads, organized either by police or by police-adjacent groups, taking out those whom the legal system cannot or will not control; we’ll see what happens in New York City.)

The big story yesterday wasn’t that citizens of the world learned for the first time that the President of the United States is mentally impaired. We citizens figured that out on our own years ago.

The huge story is that the mainstream press is broaching this taboo topic for the first time.

We don’t know why the press suddenly got the go-ahead to talk about this elephant in the room, but they apparently did.

Everyone, per the narrative, will say this is bad news for Biden, but it’s really not. All that will happen is Biden gets to retire to Delaware. Perhaps the most corrupt president in U.S. history won’t have to worry about going to prison - Nor will his train-wreck of a son, who’s even more corrupt and prurient than “Creepy Joe.”

This Florida teen faces a FELONY charge for doing a burnout on top of a rainbow crosswalk

A teenager from Clearwater, Florida, has been arrested and charged in Palm Beach County because he did a burnout in his truck on top of a sacred gay-flag crosswalk.

'Law enforcement actively worked the case for more than a week,' police said. 'We received multiple reports from concerned citizens who witnessed Brewer engaging in these destructive acts. Several witnesses provided smartphone video of the crime.'

A WEEK??? A WEEK OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS FOR A BURNOUT OVER A RAINBOW CROSSWALK!
The young man did turn himself into the cops and was let go on a $5,250 bond, in a case the cops are calling FELONY Criminal Mischief.

Yeah, a felony!!

This is not the first time this exact crosswalk was vandalized in this fashion. The last guy did this in 2021 and was fortunate to get off with probation and community service with no jail time.

I was watching a bit of recent footage of some peasants in revolt, as they are at the moment basically everywhere across the West, and was suddenly struck by the recollection that I’d definitely read a wise saying about the general situation somewhere on a fortune cookie. No, wait, I realized, this time it must actually have been from Master Confucius himself! So I went digging through my copy of the Analects…

Lo and behold, right there in Book 12, Chapter 7, is this straightforward lesson:

A disciple asks Confucius what, fundamentally, it takes to govern a state without it collapsing.

Confucius says: “Simply make sure there is enough armaments, enough food, and that you have the trust of the common people.” (足食，足兵，民信之矣.)

“If sacrificing one of these three things becomes unavoidable, which would you give up first?” the disciple asks. (必不得已而去，於斯三者何先?)

“The weapons,” Confucius replies. (去兵.)

“If two things?” the disciple asks. (必不得已而去，於斯二者何先?)

“The food,” Confucius says, because while even death is a part of life “without the trust of the people, a state cannot stand.” (去食. 自古皆有死，民無信不立.)

What is most notable to me from this little dialogue from almost 2,500 years ago is how much, in comparison, our political leaders, in their hubris and absorption in grand projects (and graft), seem to have forgotten the very basics.

Indeed it strikes me that they already failed on maintaining enough armaments (at least in Europe, though even America now seems to be struggling to produce the most basic munitions). More broadly speaking, they can no long provide security for citizens or defend their own borders.

And now they’ve suddenly got the wise idea of going after the food too, which is a plan that will surely work out great.

Most importantly, however, they have at this point already completely lost the trust of the common people, and seem incapable of even attempting to begin winning it back the hard way.[1]




... Immediately following the passage above is, amusingly, a chapter where a duke asks Confucius what to do to save his overburdened state, and Confucius tells him to stop being a doofus and cut taxes in half (to 10% from 20%, the latter being portrayed as an unprecedentedly outrageous and inhumane imposition). His job is to make the people rich and healthy, not to enrich himself and grow the government, Confucius points out. Since apparently he had a based libertarian streak.

Two judges in two separate cases fined former President Donald Trump just under half a billion dollars.

The fines suggest that Democrats seek to bankrupt Trump as he campaigns once again to shake up Washington, DC, and oust President Joe Biden, who claims he is not behind the lawsuits or indictments against Trump — although several prosecutors reportedly met with Biden administration officials before three of the indictments.

Between two cases, the fines against Trump amount to more than $430 million:

New York civil fraud case: More than $355 million
E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case: $83.3 million
In both cases, Trump says he will appeal the rulings.

I realize it’s difficult to keep up with the rogue’s gallery of politically-partisan judges and prosecutors pursuing President Trump, but by now you’ve probably heard plenty about the historic $354 million-dollar criminal penalty pinned on President Trump and his New York companies on Friday. The case started last year with an equally historic premise, using a statute that had never been used this way before against anyone, never mind against a President, and relying on a logic-defying factual allegation of financial fraud even though the banks that got Trump’s allegedly fraudulent financial statements said everything looked fine to them.

There are two major prongs in civil cases: liability and damages. You need to prove both to win a civil case. It is not quite the same way in criminal cases but it’s comparable, especially where, as here, the alleged crime (fraud) has a civil analogue. Proving criminal fraud everywhere but in New York requires proof of three things: an intent to deceive, a victim’s reliance on a deliberately-false representation, and an actual injury caused by the victim’s reliance on the deceptive representation.

New York’s novel criminal statute (never used this way before) strips two of the three elements, dehydrating the age-old ‘crime’ down to a new-age essence: the mere intent to deceive. Judge Engoran — a partisan democrat from way back — had no trouble finding that Trump intended to deceive the banks. It doesn’t matter whether the bankers said they were deceived or not, that’s reliance, an antique element jettisoned from New York law after State Attorney Letitia James woke up one morning with her brain hurting on the left side.

In other words, they’ve reduced the crime to the democrats’ absolute favorite: a thought crime. The only wrinkle under the statute is that the intent to deceive must be financially-related and written down. The fact the crime is only based on Trump’s intent is democrat partisans are proud of. For example:

Next up is the damages, or the lack thereof. Under our Constitutional system of criminal justice, punishments must be proportional. That’s basic Eighth Amendment law going back to the very beginning. There can be no cruel or unusual punishment. Which includes excessive fines. That is undisputed.

Here’s what the New York Times reported about the damages back in November:




So how did Judge Engoran calculate that his $354 million fine was proportional? Proportional to what?

The judge buried that calculation in a mind-numbing array of complicated hypotheticals, such as imagining that — despite what the bankers said — Trump might have paid a higher interest rate on the loans if his financials had looked different. That got the judge part of the way, and then he imposed a massive $250-million clawback of what he decided were “unjust profits.”

All the judge’s complicated calculations elided the requirement of proportionality to the damage actually caused.

So what comes next? An appeal. Unlike the $83 million civil verdict against President Trump in the bizarre sex assault case, there is no remittitur available for a criminal fine. So Trump will proceed directly to appeal — an appeal demonically calibrated to inflict the most possible pain, since under New York law, in order to appeal Trump must first post a bond in the full amount of the fine plus interest — over $450 million dollars.

President Trump can either put up the cash or buy a bond. Appeal bond fees cost around ten percent of the total, or $45 million dollars, which Trump would never get back. If he ultimately loses, the bonder would pay the fine but keep $450 million in Trump’s collateral, which the President was required to pledge to secure the bond. If Trump wins, he pays nothing further, but the bonder still keeps the bond fee.

Trump’s appeal now must work its way through New York’s liberal court system. Ironically, the state names its courts backwards — the trial court is called the “supreme court” — but the basic idea is the same as everywhere else. Trump must appeal first to the appellate division, and from there to New York’s supreme court, and from there to the U.S. Supreme Court — but he can only appeal to the USSC on Constitutional issues, of which there are several.

Everyone wants a prediction, but the case is a unicorn, which makes it utterly unpredictable. The one predictable part has already occurred, which is that the hyper-partisan judge and prosecutor reached this result. It was inevitable, everyone knew it, the threat of this judgment was meant to dissuade Trump from running for President. Now the unpredictable appellate part begins.

It is literally unthinkable that any court of appeals would uphold this decision. The criminal statute that the judgment was based on is Constitutionally infirm because it is vague; businesspeople in New York can’t accurately predict what conduct is prohibited. The judgment itself is Constitutionally infirm because it is wildly disproportionate to any legitimate harm caused to victims, despite Judge Engoran’s best efforts to find the victims’ testimony not credible and to calculate injuries they denied having.

Trump has excellent arguments for each of the legal aspects of the case. It’s almost an understatement to say the facts favor Trump, not least that the banks testified they weren’t harmed. The case itself was always tailor-made for an appellate court, with its high profile nature, political implications, celebrity defendant, and media interest. ...

Celebrity cases like this one break the rules. There’s nothing to compare them to. But the good news is that Trump’s lawyers have everything they need to win. It might’ve been the other way, with Trump facing difficult law and hard facts. But he’s in the best possible position to win, which should be encouraging.

Lately I often hear people complain about the use of donor money to pay Trump’s litigation expenses. That seems wrong-headed to me. Trump is only facing the litigation because he’s running for President. Donald J. Trump is the one taking all the risk — risk of bankruptcy and prison. If people don’t donate, he’s a dead Donald. So his litigation costs are campaign expenses. It’s that simple.

Lately I often hear people complain about the use of donor money to pay Trump’s litigation expenses. That seems wrong-headed to me. Trump is only facing the litigation because he’s running for President. Donald J. Trump is the one taking all the risk — risk of bankruptcy and prison. If people don’t donate, he’s a dead Donald. So his litigation costs are campaign expenses. It’s that simple.

Billionaire businessman Joe Lonsdale has blasted the draconian nine-figure fine imposed on President Donald Trump by a leftist New York judge.

Lonsdale noted that the ruling, issued in New York Attorney General Letitia James’s civil “fraud” case, is “scary” for other businesses operating in the state.

The renowned American entrepreneur declared that the ruling was “obviously” political and “not how this country is supposed to work.”

Trump was fined over $450 million in “damages” by radical Judge Arthur Engoron for “fraud,” even as the judge acknowledged there were no victims in the case.

The verdict has led to shock and alarm even among Trump’s foes, including Jeb Bush, who co-authored a Wall Street Journal article with Lonsdale defending Trump.

Lonsdale told CNN host Michael Smerconish that the verdict is “obviously” excessive and politically motivated.

Echoing Trump’s own rhetoric about the Biden “regime,” Lonsdale said he fears the government is being “weaponized” against political opponents and business will suffer.

“It’s like basically what happens in these countries when you have a regime take over that’s going after its enemies,” he said.

“You weaponize it and you penalize people in ridiculous ways.

“This is an obvious example of that.”

Lonsdale said he and his friends in business are not fans of Trump, but they find the excessive punishment “scary.”

“This is why it’s scary to my friends who do business, who don’t even like Trump because it’s a $400,000,000 fine for something where there’s no victims is obviously a weaponization of government and everyone knows on its face.”

“They know that penalizing that much in business is clearly weaponization,” he said.

Patrick says